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March 7, 2014 - Child Care Payment Update

3/7/2014

Child care providers offer a vital service for working parents and we know how critical it is for them to receive payments from the state on a regular basis. We at IDHS are taking extraordinary measures to expedite the payments that were delayed as a result of the switch to the new Child Care Management System launched on January 14, 2014, and to keep providers informed on the progress of payments.

Many payments entered in late February have been approved by DHS in the last few days, and if they haven't already been issued, should be soon. There are still payments entered with earlier entry days that have not been approved by DHS because of some technical issues. We are hopeful those held up will be approved soon.

For this program, we draw our Federal Child Care funds in the middle of the month each month which allows us to approve and issue the majority of the payments. It appears we have some funds left over from last month that will allow us to approve some payments for the day or two. Some payments entered on 3/3 were approved by DHS on March 5th. To find out when your payment was entered, you can use 800-804-3833. That number will usually tell of approval the working day following the approval, and generally will tell about issue of a payment two working days after the issue. Providers that entered their payments via the phone system - IVR on 3/1, 3/2, or 3/3 have an official entry day of 3/4. Some of the payments entered via the phone did get approved by DHS on 3/5, or may become approved tonight or Friday. We realize there are some isolated problems with approved and issued payments lately that did not calculate correctly. In particular we are aware of some problems with approvals from March 5th for phone entry payments. We are working to identify why the problems are occurring and hope to have a resolution and a reimbursement process soon.

The child care payment process is 3 Steps. Your payment is entered into the child care system, when funding is available, and the system has no errors the payment is approved by DHS. After the payment is approved, generally the payment will be issued by The Office of the Comptroller 1-3 working days after the approval. Paper checks are mailed the next working day after being issued. Direct Deposit and debit card payments are in accounts 2 working days after issue. Check back for more updates in the next few days. A recording of the daily update is available at 217-524-9041.